VATIS UPDATE Article

Engineers at the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) are developing a way to mass-produce marine biomass (i.e., seaweed) that can be turned into biofuel and bio-based chemicals. The team is developing a set of modeling tools that will predict the best locations and times to efficiently cultivate seaweed in an open-ocean farm.

The team will combine several existing modeling tools to evaluate seaweed growth potential; nutrient availability; and how natural phenomena such as wind, currents, tides, waves and storm surges could affect a manmade seaweed farm’s productivity. This project has received $2 million in funding over the course of two years.